Nairobi, Kenya 6 Day Itinerary
Nairobi’s airport taxi drivers will tell you the meter is broken. It usually isn’t. Budget roughly 2,500 to 3,500 KES (about 20 to 25 euros) for the twenty to thirty minute run from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport into town, and agree the fare before the bags go in the boot, or just open the Uber or Bolt app inside the arrivals hall and skip the negotiation entirely.
Day 1: Arrival and City Orientation
Clear immigration, grab a Bolt to your hotel, and resist the urge to nap all afternoon. Villa Rosa Kempinski and Nairobi Serena Hotel are the reliable central options if you want pools and generators for the inevitable power blip. Once you’ve dropped bags, head to the Nairobi National Museum for a couple of hours; it does a genuinely good job tracing Kenya’s human origins and the Rift Valley’s role in early hominid discoveries, which sets up everything you’ll see later in the week. Skip anything billing itself as a “Carnivore Centre” as a sightseeing stop, that’s not a real attraction, it’s a mix-up with the restaurant. Speaking of which, book dinner at The Carnivore on Langata Road, open since 1980 and still the city’s most famous meal: all-you-can-eat meat carved tableside off Maasai swords for around 4,800 KES per person. Reserve ahead for a Friday or Saturday sitting. Keep your day bag zipped and your phone off the table at the museum grounds and around Uhuru Park, opportunistic pickpocketing there is common enough that guides mention it unprompted.
Day 2: Wildlife and Culture
Book the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust weeks in advance, not days. The public elephant orphan visit runs a single daily one-hour window, 11am to noon, and access is by confirmed booking only, released roughly three months out; third-party tour sites like Viator or GetYourGuide can’t get you in, only a direct confirmation email from the Trust works. Entry is 20 USD for adults, 5 USD for children under twelve, cash on arrival, plus a separate Kenya Wildlife Service park fee that went up again in October 2025. After the elephants, head into Nairobi National Park itself for an afternoon game drive; it’s the only capital city park on earth where you can watch lions with skyscrapers in the background, which alone justifies the detour. In the evening, the Maasai Market rotates locations by day of the week, so confirm that day’s site before you go rather than guessing. For dinner, Talisman in Karen remains a long-standing expat favourite for a reason, book a table in the garden if the weather’s clear.
Day 3: City Adventure
Kazuri Bead Factory in Karen employs mostly single mothers making handmade ceramic beads, and the on-site tour is short but worth the detour before the Karen Blixen Museum next door, the actual farmhouse from “Out of Africa,” now restored with much of its original furniture. From there, the Giraffe Centre lets you hand-feed endangered Rothschild’s giraffes at eye level from a raised platform, a genuinely odd and memorable half hour that photographs badly justify. For dinner, Seven Restaurant and Bar or the Alchemist Bar in Westlands and Karura Forest fringe areas both deliver relaxed international menus if you want a break from red meat two nights running. My opinion: skip a third heavy meat dinner this trip, your stomach will thank you on the Amboseli drive tomorrow.
Day 4: Day Trip to Amboseli National Park
Amboseli sits roughly four to five hours by road southeast of Nairobi, near the Tanzania border, and the payoff is the classic postcard shot: elephant herds walking with Kilimanjaro looming behind them on a clear morning. Leave before dawn if you can, both for the light and because afternoon dust and cloud often swallow the mountain. Spend the day on game drives, then overnight at a lodge inside or bordering the park, Ol Tukai Lodge and Sentrim Amboseli are both solid mid-range choices with unfenced wildlife wandering the grounds after dark. Pack a fleece: mornings and evenings here drop into the low teens Celsius even though you’re near the equator, which surprises most first-timers.
Day 5: Return to Nairobi and Bomas of Kenya
Head back to Nairobi in the morning, traffic permitting, an unremarkable sentence in most cities but a real planning factor here since the road can add an hour with no warning. In the afternoon, Bomas of Kenya recreates traditional homesteads from more than a dozen of the country’s ethnic groups, with a live dance and acrobatics show that’s touristy but well performed and worth the modest entry fee. For dinner, The Tribe Hotel’s restaurant in Gigiri does a solid fusion menu if you want white tablecloths after five days of dust; it’s pricier than anywhere else on this list, so treat it as the one splurge night.
Day 6: Departure
Use the morning for souvenir shopping rather than leaving it to the airport, where selection is thin and prices are inflated. If you didn’t get to the main Maasai Market earlier in the week, this is the moment, and haggling is expected and even appreciated, starting around half the quoted price is normal practice. Leave for Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at least three hours before an international flight; security lines and the terminal’s ongoing renovation work have made the process slower and less predictable than it looks on paper.